Why I’m Worried That Facebook Bought Oculus Rift

Tech Heads' Austin Linfante writes: "I appreciate that Zuckerberg and Facebook want to spend billions of dollars in what they believe will help worldwide communication. Whether that can be done with a virtual reality headset that runs through a PC and was created with gaming in mind, and whether they know when to move on from gaming and make it the next next big thing in technology, I’m not so sure."
(Industry, Oculus, Oculus Rift, PC)

And I'm afraid that it is going to make me give up my first born child to be sacrificed in a ritual at Facebook. I don't know why, I just am.

Seriously, though, why can't people simply use their heads a little?

The Rift is a piece of hardware. Do people really believe that Facebook will block developers from making games for the Rift or force us to sign in to Facebook just to use the Rift? They don't even force you to sign into Facebook to use Instagram or WhatsApp and those are software/websites.

Everybody knows that they are going to branch out into VR social media, but how would that change the qualities the Rift has as a VR gaming device? It wouldn't.

And even if Facebook was stupid enough to try to drop gaming somewhere down the road(which is absurdly far fetched in my opinion) they would only be shooting themselves in the foot.

Anybody can come to market with a VR headset and the only way Facebook would maintain a dominant position would be to give people what they want. Putting immersion-breaking ads in an experience that is ALL about immersion is the opposite of giving people what they want.

Not to mention, the Rift is just a piece of hardware and it would be easy for people to just mod it and rip out any Facebook stuff. People would just circumvent it and use it for their own purposes.

People who are interested how Facebook and Oculus are thinking about this should listen to the shareholders conference call here: http://www.shareholder.com/...

"Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences. Immersive gaming is the first big oportunity. And Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing.

The beta version of the Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community and Oculus has already received orders for more than 75,000 development kits...which is pretty crazy by itself. These developers are mostly gamers, so this is a strong signal of how much people want to develop games for Oculus and how excited they are about it as a gaming platform.

We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games and accelerate their plans. And they'll continue to operate independently within Facebook to do this."

I'm not worried due to the fact that this means it will get proper funding and likely be cheaper which is a plus to consumers.

Mandatory Facebook integration also isn't a personal worry due to the fact that all game platforms have some sort of mandatory integration with their own system; yet those aren't social media services...kinda.

I think waiting and see would be the best option instead of dooming promising tech due to an acquisition that could very well propel it.

For anyone to think that VRs main value lies in gaming is as ignorant a fool as Palmer Luckey. FB scored huge on this thing. They paid pennies for the potential future value of this device and they seem to be the only ones to see the plethora of possible applications and the millions and billions to be made from said applications. Palmer was an idiot; with proper marketing and dev time he could have easily made 2 billion on O.R. as easy as it is for him to take a shit. But then again marketing and dev time aint cheap either. Can't really blame him though, he's young and stupid, lured by a huge payout. It's probably best someone who makes poor decisions like he did isnt part of the company any longer.

Do not fear comrades, the O.R. will prosper under Mother FB's grand expansion and rule under the stoic iron fist of data accumulation and great acquisitions. You'll see. Long live FB! Smash the proletariat! Crush the competition! Buyout the start-ups! Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!

I cant agree with you more. Unfortunately money is the "great corrupter". People have made this deal far too personal with far too much self entitlement which isn't surprising in the least given how so many "gamers" conduct themselves. Now Palmer can 'buy' himself a woman who will only love his big fat....roll of cash.

Do you think people would have had as bad a reaction if Facebook had just invested in Oculus instead of just outright buying them? I get the feeling they probably wouldn't. Microsoft didn't buy Facebook early on, it just invested in them. And where would Apple be today if IBM had just bought them back in the day?